


Just Trying To Rendezvous

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Give Me The News [13]
Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: Episode Related, First Kiss, It's happening, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 06:25:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17544437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Victor and Jack get their board results, and have a hell of a time trying to get the chance to talk.When they do, they finally wind up on the same page.





	Just Trying To Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> A little end-of-s2 dialogue incorporated

    Victor knows the elimination process has barely begun, but he’s got no idea how he’s going to survive to the end of it. One day at a time, he guesses. One hour at a time.

 

    He’s sorting through files in the nurse’s lounge-- in part because he needs two of them, and part because Nurse Rosenthal had said she couldn’t help him right now and she’d seemed so frazzled and _he’d_ been so frazzled, that when she told him that the carousel was getting repaired and they were up to their eyeballs in clerical problems, somehow he’d wound up volunteering to help straighten things out. At least just the clipboards that had gotten scattered all through the area when the carousel broke, and with half the pages flying off and getting all mixed up and needing to be put back in order... He might as well, while he’s getting his own. Even if spread across the table in the nurses’ lounge isn’t very convenient in comparison, at least when maintenance beats the carousel back into submission, they won’t have any trouble loading things up properly. If he can get the papers in order, then his life is in order.

 

    The radio announces its upcoming ‘twofer tuesday’ back-to-back of The Cars. Victor doesn’t even realize he’s singing along until he looks up and sees Jack smiling at him like he’s doing _something_ and he realizes, coughing and sputtering to a halt.

 

    “Do you have the McIntyre file over here?” Jack asks softly, and at least he doesn’t make fun or anything, not that Victor ever believed he would at this point. If he was going to make fun, he’d have done it a long time ago, he’d have done it over a lot of things.

 

    “Mm, you might want to check his liver function but everything else is doing good.” He nods, passing the appropriate file over. Jack’s hand covers his on the clipboard a moment and his heart skips a beat.

 

    “I’ll be sure to have a look. Glad the rest of his treatment is working. Thanks.” Jack says, as Victor reluctantly removes his hand.

 

    “Sure.” He practically whispers, nodding. Retreats back to the hunt for his own necessary files, humming to himself a moment before he dares a glance back up to Jack, and then his lips are moving and he’s sure he didn’t tell them they could, and his voice is… stronger than it was, and he didn’t give himself permission for that either, but here he is. “But I think that you’re wild, when you flash that fragile smile… You might think it’s foolish, what you put me through. You might think I’m crazy, but all I want is you…”

 

    Jack grins, swaying a little with the radio, as Victor turns back to a clipboard, grabbed at random, tries to play the moment off as… as anything not personal, as they both sing a few lines along without looking at each other. Jack’s hip bumps into his on the ‘you kept it going’, stunning Victor into silence, making him forget he was going to look at the clipboard and not at Jack.

 

    “Well you might think I’m delirious, the way I run you down.” Jack continues, where Victor’s voice dies off. “But somewhere, sometime, when you’re curious, I’ll be back around. Oh, I think that you’re wild. And so uniquely styled…”

 

    Neither of them finishes singing along. Jack straightens the front of Victor’s shirt with a gentle tug, and the door swings open, sending Victor into a fit of nervous coughing as he whirls away.

 

    “Worried about the boards?” Nurse Rosenthal asks, sympathetic. “Are these all ready to go back out? Oh, Victor, you’re a miracle. If you’ve got your patients, don’t worry about making sure the rest of the pages are in order, we can take it from here.”

 

    “He’s going to get through just fine.” Jack pats his shoulder, and there’s no fathomless odd look in his eye, just his usual friendly warmth, his usual smile.

 

    “Hey, here’s hoping. Both of us, right?” He says, but Jack just shrugs and looks down at the clipboard in his hands. “Well-- All those there are sorted but I’m still putting together a couple of my patients.”

 

    “We’ll be out of your hair when we’ve got what we need.” Jack says, and she nods to the both of them as she takes the stack of clipboards that have been reassembled and sorted back out.

 

    “Did you have another patient? Did I miss a page?” Victor asks.

 

    Jack shakes his head. “Just had a minute, I figured… you could at least have some company while you sort. Isn’t this under someone else’s job description?”

 

    “Yeah, but Nurse Rosenthal’s got enough to do.”

 

    “Maybe, but the nurses gossiping with maintenance don’t seem to.” Jack frowns. “If you didn’t like doing it…”

 

    “I like doing it.” Victor shrugs. “I’ve got to do something. Otherwise I’ll just be thinking about those cuts…”

 

    Jack nods and moves to the coffee pot, grabbing a mug, half-humming, half-singing to himself.

 

    That… that moment, earlier… that hadn’t meant anything. It couldn’t have meant anything-- not to Jack. It meant a little too much, to Victor, but… what doesn’t? He’s in love, he can’t help it. No one can ask him to help it, as long as he doesn’t start making it into Jack’s problem. Which is hard not to do, because he just wants to be close to him, he just wants to lean so much more into every innocent touch…

 

    “I don’t mind you hanging out, talking in your sleep…” Jack mumbles the line out, grabbing for sugar and a spoon.

 

    “I guess you’re just what I needed, I needed someone to feed.” Victor sings back-- there’s some cruel little irony that aches, if irony’s even the word he wants, and before… before they were just singing along to the radio, just a couple young guys needing to blow off even the slightest amount of steam worrying about exam results and jobs and everything. Not… not singing to each other. Just singing back and forth, just the kind of thing he guesses friends do.

 

    “I guess you’re just what I needed, I needed someone to bleed.” Jack answers, only it’s not an answer, it’s just…

 

    It’s just a thing that people do, he isn’t even looking at Victor, he’s looking at his cup of coffee.

 

    “I don’t mind you coming here, and wasting all my time, time… ‘cause when you’re standing oh so near--”

 

    “I kind of lose my mind, yeah.” Jack joins him on the line, turning towards him with cup of coffee outstretched, and Victor’s brain shorts out completely.

 

    He nearly drops his clipboard and papers, fumbles them down onto the table safely so that he can take the mug from Jack, and that puts them… that puts them so _close_ to each other.

 

    “It’s not the perfume that you wear, it’s not the ribbons in your hair. I don’t mind you comin’ here, and wasting all my time…”

 

    And with Victor holding onto the coffee, Jack’s hand is free to come up and just barely touch Victor’s hair, where it’s a bit too much in his face. And neither of them joins in on the fading choruses, and neither of them move, and Victor knows, he knows what this _can’t_ mean, he just doesn’t know what it _does_ mean. He doesn’t know why Jack bothers with him. He doesn’t know how to _ask_. That fathomless look is back in his eyes, that unreadable ocean-deep thing that makes him uncomfortable, only he couldn’t breathe if he stopped looking into it.

 

     Ric Ocasek sings ‘so bleed me’ and Jack looks into Victor’s eyes, and Victor _throbs_ with something he doesn’t have a name for. And also with something he does have a name for, just a little bit. Not enough to cause a noticeable lack of real estate in his pants, but enough that he’d die if Nurse Rosenthal came back in. If he noticed anyone coming in, over how hard he’s noticing Jack, and the currently inescapable fact that he would like to bite his lower lip, maybe not hard but maybe hard, maybe hard, if Jack would grab onto him, if he would make any kind of noise, if he would kiss back _but he won’t, dummy_.

 

    “Thank you.” Victor manages at last. “For the coffee.”

 

    “I should get to my patient.” Jack nods, holding up his clipboard. “But later?”

 

    “Yeah. Catch me any time, I’m-- I’m, you know, whenever I’m not busy, I’m yours.”

 

    “Mine. Good.” Jack shifts his grip on his clipboard. “I mean, I’ll find you. Or you’ll find me, I’m flexible if you are.”

 

    “Sure.” Victor laughs, nervous. _Flexible_ that is not what he meant but gosh the idea of Jack being flexible, _flexible_ , _flexible about men or just physically or ideally both, ideally bent back over his kitchen table and kissed stupid, ideally shedding his clothes and_ okay, down boy… Ideally, ideally would be not having sexual fantasies about one of his friends, over said friend’s table, where Victor has started eating dinner fairly regularly, and things could get awkward fast if he can’t sit at that table without thinking about _putting Jack in his mouth instead of the food okay no_ intimate situations, he tells himself he’s not even going to think it.

 

    He has some more work done by the time he gets his own patient files in order so that he can get on with work. Nurse Rosenthal comes back in to see a couple more finished files laid out, and she pats his arm, smiling warmly up at him.

 

    “Thank you, Victor.”

 

    “My pleasure.” His own smile is a little tight, a little awkward, but he certainly feels nice being thanked. Being acknowledged. “Say-- you don’t know…?”

 

   “Still discussing it, but you really can’t let yourself get too worried. Doctor Craig speaks very highly of your work. Well… compared to how he speaks about anyone.”

 

    “He does?”

 

    She laughs softly. “Yes. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know, but it could be a while yet.”

 

    “Thanks. I mean it.”

 

    “I know.” She waves him off, and he gets his files in order and heads off to handle checking in with his patients.

 

    People have been telling him he’s Craig’s favorite, and normally he takes it with a grain of salt. But wouldn’t she know if he was?

 

    Well, maybe she would.

 

    He doesn’t see Jack for a while, but he sees him sooner than he thought he would, in the lounge with Pete in his lap and a small knot of people.

 

    “Well, hey, there, champ.” Victor grins, going straight to the arm of the couch. It’s the closest thing to an open seat next to Jack and Pete, who Victor leans in to pay attention to. He’s not thinking about the cuts when he has Pete giggling and reaching for him. “The externs get younger every year.”

 

    Jack smiles up at him briefly, as he tickles Pete, though the smile falls away as he turns back to Jackie and Annie, takes a paper from Wayne.

 

    “So these are the pamphlets?”

 

    “Yeah. We’re stocking them in all the women’s rooms, in case it helps any patients.” Jackie nods.

 

    “I don’t get it.” Wayne frowns, slumping back into his seat. “Why would any woman stay with a guy who does this stuff to her?”

 

    “Not every woman feels she has a choice. She might not have an income, or a family she can turn to.” Jackie shrugs.

 

    “And kids complicate things.” Annie adds.

 

    “It’s not just that.” Jack hands Pete off to Victor, before carefully folding the sheet in his hand into pamphlet form. “There are complicated emotions, she might feel… _responsible_ for him.”

 

    “That’s ridiculous. It’s never her fault if a guy’s like this!” Wayne sits forward, gesturing in futile upset before collapsing back again.

 

    “No, but she could _feel_ that way. Say you meet a guy. You have a lot in common, he’s charming, he’s funny, he… he makes you feel special. Good about yourself. And for a while, things are great. You get invested. Maybe you move in together, or maybe he just comes over whenever he wants to, and it’s not really your place to ask about where he is when he’s not there. And sometimes things are hard for him, he’s got stress from work or school or whatever else is going on in his life, and you start to feel tense just wondering if he’s going to be angry. But he has it hard and you have to be _so_ supportive, and he’s never done anything to hurt you, he’d never, he’s your bes-- um, your boyfriend, or your husband, or… whatever, he’s the best, he takes care of you and you take care of him. And then one day he hits you. And it’s not… it’s not a big deal, you were fighting. Maybe he’s not like that when he’s sober, but maybe you shouldn’t have nagged at him about being sober.” Jack swallows. A muscle at his jaw keeps twitching. “And he says it won’t happen again. Maybe you believe him. But maybe you think… if I wasn’t here, who’d take care of him? What would he do if no one was taking care of him? You’re holding a lion on a leash and you think ‘if I let go, who’s he going to hurt?’ So how long can you hold onto that leash?”

 

    “I still think that sounds crazy.”

 

    “I’m not saying there’s anything right about it, I’m saying there are a lot of reasons people have for staying. Sometimes you don’t see the red flags until it’s too late. You tell yourself it’s nothing you can’t handle until… I don’t know. Until someone gets hurt.”

 

    “That’s pretty depressing.”

 

    “That’s why we have the pamphlets. At least if someone’s got questions about what the red flags are, we can offer confirmation… ways of getting help.” Annie says.

 

    Jack gets to his feet, and Victor looks up at him.

 

    “Back to the grindstone already?”

 

    “No, no, just… I think I need a little air. Hey-- would you mind coming with? Since you’ve got my kid and all.” He manages a little smile that sets Victor’s insides rolling over themselves.

 

    “No problem.” He adjusts his hold on Pete and rises to follow, happy to be the one carrying the baby. Pete is, again, a little too interested in Victor’s glasses-- he gets hold of them while Victor is following Jack down the stairs, and they have to stop in the stairwell so that he can get himself free before they’re yanked off.

 

    “I’d better take him from here. Worst he can do is pull my hair, and he’s not really a big hair-puller. Glasses, jewelry-- he’s at that age where anything shiny is interesting.” He chuckles softly, reaching out to take Pete. “Sorry.”

 

    “No, it’s fine, really.” Victor slips his glasses off, holding them up for Pete to look through. “That’s right, Uncle Victor doesn’t see too well… Okay, I’m gonna need those back, you know using the wrong prescription isn’t too good for your eyes, either, champ.”

 

    “Let me see.” Jack takes them from him-- Victor surrenders them pretty easily when he reaches out, it’s not like having them snatched away. And again, if Jack was going to make fun of him, he’d have done it long before now, for so many other things. The strength of his glasses should hardly register, on the scale of Victor Ehrlich Weirdness. “Oh, that bad?”

 

    “Yeah, that bad.”

 

    “Better let you have these back before we take another flight of stairs, then. I mean… it’s just as well. You needing glasses. You look good in ‘em. Or-- They look right on you. Just… you don’t look quite like you without them.”

 

    “Is looking like me a good thing?” Victor laughs. He’s never felt quite so nervous _since being at gunpoint, anyway, remember that, Victor? And if it happened to you here then it could happen to anyone you love_. His face heats and he braces himself for Jack to laugh, to say ‘I don’t know, to _blow him off_ brush it off, not… To not want to answer, because there’s no answer that’s both nice and true, is there? And Jack is too nice to say no _but he’s not going to say yes, either_.

 

    Jack starts moving, leaving Victor frozen on the landing, before stopping and looking up at him from one step down. It’s a look that lingers for a long moment, that seems to trace over everything about Victor’s face, though he doesn’t bother giving anything else more than a perfunctory once-over. Victor’s face is where the glasses are, after all, if that’s got anything to do with what they’re talking about.

 

    “I think so.” He nods, smiling warmly.

 

    “Oh.” Victor says. _Real eloquent_. His heart is fluttering like mad and so is his stomach, and he watches as Jack bites his lip, still smiling, _love to bite that lip for him love to know what that smile_ tastes _like love to press him back against the wall and find out_ and Victor just doesn’t know what to _do_ with everything he feels about him.

 

    “Are you coming?” He jerks his head towards the next landing, and Victor scrambles to follow. “I wanted to ask you something, actually--”

 

    When they hit the landing, Victor pulling ahead again, the door swings open, pushing Victor back into the corner and separating him from Jack, until he can push his way back around it.

 

    “Jack! Hey--” White greets, and he falters a moment when he spots Victor, and dismisses him almost immediately. “Just the man I wanted to see. You have a minute?”

 

   “Oh-- well…” Jack glances over to Victor, uneasy, and something cold washes over Victor at that unease.

 

    “C’mon, Jack.” White pats his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over the hospital for you. One minute before you get back to work?”

 

 _White_ Victor can’t breathe _Does he want to tell Jack more lies about you, or does he just want to get him away from you?_ Crazy, why would he want to _because he wants to keep Jack away from_ everyone _it’s not about you Jack will always choose him over you it’s about keeping Jack isolated oh oh no because he’s oh no but Jack is always going to choose no no it’s different but it isn’t, is it? Because he’s..._

 

    “Jack…”

 

    “I’ll… I’ll finish asking you that question later.” Jack nods to him.

 

    “What question?” White asks.

 

    “Nothing important.” Jack shakes his head, pastes on a smile and cuddles Pete closer the way he does when it’s a long day and things are going wrong, or when exam anxiety is bad. “What did you need me for?”

 

    If White sees the anxiety, he doesn’t show any sign of it. Or he just doesn’t care. The last thing Victor wants is to be around White any longer than necessary, he didn’t want that even before… all of this. But he doesn’t want Jack alone with him, after everything he’s said, if he’s nervous.

 

    “Jack, wait--” He starts forward, abandoning the stairs to follow them out to the second floor. Once Jack turns back to look at him, he realizes he has no idea what to say. Things just keep bubbling up in him and he’s sure they’re all the wrong things. But what are the right ones? “Jack… about that thing you were saying upstairs-- about the leash?”

 

    “Don’t worry about it.” Jack says, in a tone that does not make Victor any less worried. “Later, okay?”

 

     “Sure.” He swallows, not moving as Jack turns forward again, as he and White begin to pull away.

 

    “So Ehrlich’s into leashes now or what?” He hears White laugh, and he rushes back out to the stairwell before he can find himself overwhelmed out in the open.

 

    Why does he have to be so _nasty_? Callous is fine, mean is fine, Victor can handle it, he’s used to handling it. He can handle a lot. But why does White have to go out of his way to remind Jack that Victor is _a freak?_ abnormal? In bed, no less! He just doesn’t want Jack to think anything is _wrong_ with him, but the evidence just keeps mounting, doesn’t it? And the jokes keep coming, and White keeps… Victor doesn’t know. Trying to push him out.

 

    Just thinking about White hurting Jack makes his stomach go all sick. If he ever saw him about to try, he… _Oh, what, Victor_? _You’d jump in and be the hero_? _You’d lay him out with one punch_?

 

    He imagines putting himself between them. Imagines taking a punch, not sure he could really give one. He might hurt his hand and he might not do any good, but he’d take a hit for Jack, he’s been hit before. He knows what it feels like. It’s not exactly fun, but he wouldn’t mind if he was sparing Jack that, he really wouldn’t. It might not be the worst he’s taken, even.

 

    And he allows himself the fantasy, because if he’s going to imagine being hit, he might as well imagine Jack taking care of him after. An arm around his shoulders, his voice soft and reassuring, a bag of ice held in one of those big, gentle hands… Would he thank him, or tell him not to do it again, or _he wouldn’t do anything for_ you _at all, he’d be looking over White’s hand_ …

 

    Victor abandons the fantasy, with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. His face is wet.

 

 _Idiot_. _Did you think you were going to matter_? _Did you think he was going to_ love _you_? _Did you think he was ever going to choose you over White even once_? _You’ve definitely got the ego to be a surgeon, if you think you mean_ that _much to Jack Morrison_.

 

    The door swings open again, and Victor jumps, hopes in spite of himself that he’ll see Jack there, but why would Jack even expect him to wait around the stairwell for him if he did come back? And it isn’t him, of course it isn’t him. Dr. Westphall does a double-take at the sight of him, and Victor doesn’t want to know what he must look like.

 

   “Everything all right?”

 

    “Yes, Sir, fine.” He nods, pushing his glasses up his forehead to wipe at his eyes. “Just-- just getting back to work, I guess.”

 

    He doesn’t have to, but he might as well, at this point… he doesn’t feel like a cup of coffee, or getting some air all on his own, or going back to talk to the others. He could just check in on his patients again, just in case…

 

    “You sure?”

 

    He just nods harder, his glasses sliding back into place, or almost back into place. He’s used to Dr. Craig, who would just tell him to pull himself together and go on his way-- well, who might stop him and lecture him if he didn’t say he was fine and going back to work, but… but who wouldn’t stop him and suggest that he not just work through whatever personal turmoil he’s experiencing.

 

    “Okay. If you need to take a minute… we all get hard days sometimes, it’s part of the territory. All we can do is do our best, we can’t keep every single patient from going south.”

 

    “It’s not that.” He shakes his head. And there it is, like a bottle being uncorked, and now he can’t not say something, and his shoulders jerk once but he doesn't quite sob, at least. “I don’t like it-- Peter White being in the building, I mean! I don’t like it at all.”

 

    “Tell the truth, neither do I, but… the courts declared him innocent, so for now…”

 

    “I think he’s guilty, but it’s not just-- I think he… I think he’s guilty of something else, too, only I don’t…” Victor has to stop and wipe at his eyes again. “I don’t know what, exactly, I don’t know how to ask about it, I just think-- I think he hurts people. And I don’t think someone like that belongs in medicine, and I don’t like him always-- I don’t-- I mean, I’m mad as hell about it, you know?”

 

    “I know.” Westphall pats his shoulder, and he sounds like he does know, like he really does. “Me, too.”

 

    Victor wonders if Dr. Westphall is allowed to cut someone from the residency program for being a rapist, or if it has to be about test scores. He doesn’t like the thought that it might come down to the test too much-- this time, not because of his own anxieties, but because the things that make White a bad doctor have nothing to do with knowing the answers on a test, they have to do with his not caring enough to double-check things. And with his being a bastard.

 

    Victor gets himself in order as much as he can, and gets in an extra check-in with the patients he has assigned, spends the rest of the day in a haze. He goes down to pediatrics a couple of times and says hi to Pete when he sees him there getting looked after, but Jack isn’t there the times he goes. Jack’s not around anywhere he tries to arrange being, just in case.

 

    The cuts have been made, he hears that through the grapevine, and he can’t even think about Jack at that point. All he can think about is that he’s on call and it feels like an eternity before he might know what his fate is, and it’s painful. It’s physically painful! And then, then!

 

    Nothing else seems to matter, in that glorious moment that he gets the news. He doesn’t care about being here all night, he doesn’t even care if he has to go into the OR at the end of his shift and work an extra few hours, because he’s coming back and it’s all going to be okay!

 

    He’s only reminded of how hard he’d been looking for Jack when Jack finds him.

 

    “Crazy day, huh?” He greets, touching Victor’s arm. “Hey… can we talk?”

 

     He must be just as anxious. He gets to go home sooner than Victor does, but even so… There’s such a huge _weight_ that seems to be pressing down on Jack, and Victor’s stomach feels small at the thought of some of that weight being White rather than the results of the boards. Victor at least got to catch Craig, but Jack...

 

    “Of course. All yours.”

 

    The smile barely twitches at the corner of Jack’s lips a moment. He doesn’t meet Victor’s eyes. After looking around and seeing the nurses’ lounge occupied and someone heading into on call, Jack finally steers Victor into an empty exam room.

 

    “This must be important.” Victor says-- it sounds stupid once the words are out. Of course it is, Jack’s been acting like it was important since he first asked if they could talk. He just feels so lost. “Is this about-- about before, when we didn’t get to talk?”

 

    “No. No, that’s… that’s definitely not important anymore. Victor… we’ve been spending a lot of time talking, and-- and I think there are things we both thought… I mean, we-- we both always wanted similar things out of life, career things, and-- maybe we both expected certain-- we both--”

 

    Whatever point Jack had wanted to make, his being paged interrupts.

 

    “You’ll be here later?” He asks, and there’s an intensity in the way he looks at Victor, in the way he grips his elbow, and even if Victor wasn’t on call, he’d have said yes, he’d have waited as long as Jack needed him to.

 

    “All night.”

 

    “Okay. Well-- you can get back to it, I’ll find you.” Jack nods. “I’d better… I’ll find you.”

 

     “I’m hard to miss.” Victor nods.

 

     “You stand out.” Jack says, and Victor has no idea what to make of the look on his face or the quick breath he takes when he looks away briefly. “But I’ll miss you when I’m not here.”

 

    With that, he’s gone, and Victor has no idea what to do with the feeling rapidly expanding inside his chest. Jack… Jack, who doesn’t say ‘you stand out’ like it’s a bad thing-- who says it like maybe it’s a good one. Who says he’ll miss Victor, not like it’s a joke. He has time off coming up, that’s the best guess Victor can make as to what he might actually mean, they both have vacation time coming after the madness of the boards, and he won’t be able to go home on his own break. Jack has less time all at once, he thinks, because he’d taken that trip home, so he’ll probably be using his own free time right here in the general area, but maybe… maybe that just means it’ll be a good time to take him and Pete to the beach, like they’d talked about. The weather will be nice… Maybe a couple trips out, in case the first time they go, the waves are mush, but it… it would be nice. After everything else, it’ll be something nice.

 

    In the end, Jack doesn’t get him-- he goes to sleep in on call and wakes up to hear Jack headed home, and he doesn’t like it, but maybe he should have told him if it was important it would be okay to wake him… His mood is perked back up by the memory of that ‘I’ll miss you’, whatever it might have meant. The thought of Jack having dinner alone and wishing he was around, the thought of Jack thinking about him from home at all…

 

    Instead of seeing Jack, he sees Wayne, who gives him the news about Wendy Armstrong, on their way out. That weighing on his mind in place of other worries, Victor goes home for a shower and a nap and a real breakfast. Not much of a shower, not much of a nap, and not much of a real breakfast, but still, it’s better doing all of those things at home than at St. Eligius, and he gets to change.

 

    He doesn’t get to see Jack before rounds, and then he doesn’t expect to see him until after he gets out of his lecture. He’s on his way to lunch with the Examiner tucked under his arm before he spots him, and he trips over himself doubling back to catch up to him. He loses half his paper, but it’s not like he needs all of it, anyway, he just has to scramble to grab it all up so he’s not leaving a mess. At least he makes enough of an accidental scene that Jack hears him and doesn’t move on before he can reach him.

 

     “Jack!” He pulls him aside, gasping for breath-- well, starts to, but Jack half has to catch him, so it’s more a mutual getting each other free of the hallway. “Is everything okay?”

 

    “Everything… might be.” Jack nods slowly. “Situation keeps… keeps kind of changing on me. I’ll keep you updated, okay? When I know what’s going on. I mean… not everything is. I mean… you heard about Wendy?”

 

    Victor nods. “I was in the OR when it happened, I didn’t find out until I was going home in the morning.”

 

    “It’s… it’s kind of all that’s on my mind right now. I’m sorry I didn’t-- You were sleeping, you looked like you needed it.”

 

    “You can wake me if it’s important.”

 

    Jack squeezes his shoulder, gentle. “You needed it.”

 

    “Are you heading to lunch?” He asks.

 

    Jack shakes his head. “Can’t. I’ll eat later. And-- Victor… that question, about the leash thing… it’s okay. Really. I’m okay. I’m just-- I’m really sorry about Peter yesterday. I didn’t mean to blow you off for him, I just… I didn’t want him getting at you. And he-- it’s a misunderstanding. He’s been worried that I was replacing him, and I just… it’s hard to explain to him how you’re not the same kind of friend he is...”

 

     “Well-- well, yeah! I mean, I should hope!” Victor snorts. He’s absolutely not the kind of selfish, jerky, horrible-excuse-for-a-human-being friend that Peter White is! For half a second, he worries this might offend Jack a little, but it doesn’t-- Jack just laughs softly, his hand slipping down from Victor’s shoulder to his elbow.

 

    “Jack, I just mean-- if he doesn’t treat you right--” He says, because Jack had said it wasn’t a problem, the leash thing, but the idea still lingers.

 

    “Oh-- no, Victor, I mean-- I’ve never asked him to.” He shakes his head. It’s so immediate, so vehement, and Victor feels his heart _break_ at the idea. How long has Jack let himself be taken advantage of and been fine with it? How could he not demand better? “It’s not like…”

 

    “You ought to be treated right.” He presses, his own hand coming up to grip Jack’s arm. “Really. Jack…”

 

    Jack ducks his head, smiling. “Okay. It-- it’s okay. You--”

 

    He cuts himself off, his other hand moves to Victor’s waist for a moment, and anyone who walked in would probably get the wrong idea, the way they’re holding onto each other, only Victor guesses it’s only half-wrong, anyway, but he doesn’t know what to say, and Jack keeps not finishing his thought, until finally he takes both hands off of Victor.

 

    “I’ve got to get back to it. You better hurry up and get lunch while you’ve got the chance.” He says, giving Victor’s arm one final pat.

 

    “Sure. I’ll see you? Hey-- Jack-- We were, I heard people wanted to go out and celebrate, those of us coming back, so-- I just mean, would you--?”

 

    “I’ll let you know when I’m sure.” Jack says, and then he’s heading off at practically a jog.

 

    “You don’t know yet?” Victor calls after him, appalled, but Jack’s out of hearing range, apparently, he doesn’t even wave back to show he’s heard. Didn’t they messenger him same as everyone? He must have been home! Or did something happen to his? Or maybe he just meant when he knew if he was free to celebrate?

 

   He heads to lunch, a little late, but Wayne’s table has a seat saved, and Wayne’s adventures are some kind of distraction from worrying about Jack, at least-- he still has the relevant section of the paper, he flips it open to pass around the table.

 

    “Okay, I’ll admit it, you look fabulous.” He sighs, as the others go over the page. He may not have any personal interest in the guy, but he can say it, anyway, there’s nothing wrong with the photo. Makes him look cute, in a sexy-but-non-threatening kind of way. He still doesn’t think Wayne would be exactly his type even if they weren’t friends, but it’s hard to remove that filter of weirdness enough to say. Still, an objective compliment is in order, especially if he’d been worried it would be a disaster, because it’s really not. “And not only that, the women are gonna be battering down your door.”

 

    No sooner has he said it than the PA is sending Wayne to answer a phone call, and it’s not like Victor could have mustered up much feeling for a stranger if he had been the one in the photo shoot, but still… his own bitingly lonely singlehood makes for his being a sore loser.

 

    “Oh, please let that be an emergency.” He groans. Still, when Wayne flashes a nervous grin back his way, he shoots him a reassuring smile. He’s jealous, he’s not heartless.

 

    Anyway… it’s not like a photo spread in the paper would have put him in Jack’s arms, and those are the arms he finds himself caring about, not whatever beautiful women might be interested in a man with formal underwear.

 

    It’s not an emergency, but it’s not good, either. He can’t quite make out everything from the snit he throws at the phone, not over the general din of the cafeteria, but once he hangs up, Wayne drags himself back to the table looking supremely irritated.

 

    “What’s the matter?”

 

    “It wasn’t a woman.”

 

    “Okay, so it was a regular phone call, they’ll still hunt you down eventually--”

 

    “No, I mean _it wasn’t a woman_.”

 

    Oh.

 

    Oh.

 

    Victor’s not sure what to say. He can’t exactly say he’s just as jealous over male attention as he would have been over female attention-- and anyway, he’s really not interested in some man who isn’t Jack who’s just interested in his body. Well… his body is interested in anyone being interested in him for his body, but emotionally, he’s really not ready for that, and even if he was, he couldn’t. He couldn’t go off with a man for anything because of his career, it’s just…

 

     Well, he is jealous. He’s never had a man want to do fun, interesting, sexy-type things with him, and he’d actually appreciate it! At least in theory! And Wayne gets a guy who thinks he’s good-looking and wants to get to know him, and he doesn’t appreciate it at all, he shudders theatrically and Shirley and Vijay laugh, and Victor just feels like the butt of the joke and he can’t even say anything about it.

 

    “Maybe the next one.” He says, but his heart’s not really in it.

 

    “He said he wanted to put his tongue someplace that tongues don’t belong.” Wayne adds.

 

    “Oh, please.” Victor rolls his eyes, sneering a little. “If it had been some cute little thing named Tiffany, you wouldn’t complain about where she wanted to put _her_ tongue.”

 

     “I would be if she wanted to put it where Gene wanted to put it.”

 

    “No!” Shirley laughs.

 

    “What, it’s something weird?” Victor’s brow furrows, as he tries to put together what Wayne means.

 

    “He’s talking about where the sun doesn’t shine.” Shirley helpfully provides, and Victor’s brain shorts out completely.

 

    “You can _do_ that?”

 

    “You really shouldn’t.” Wayne says.

 

    You’d need a hygiene routine and even then, a barrier laid down, obviously, but with that in mind, Victor doesn’t see why not. He tries very hard not to think about why, but it’s no good. He absolutely wants to do that to Jack now. Jack has such a nice ass, and he tries really hard not to think about it, especially when he’s trying to do a little routine self-maintenance, but it’s so hard not to just imagine… maybe nothing much. Maybe just touching a little. Squeezing. Just one good smack for the sound it would make, nothing that would hurt! He tries not to think about any of it, but sometimes he sees Jack bending over for something and he can’t help a passing thought. Now, now he’s fighting his imagination and it’s a losing battle against the thought of spreading Jack open. Maybe sinking his teeth into one cheek before, okay, no, stopping right there, _no matter how good he looks_ thinking about Jack this way is _wrong_ , _but it feels so right_ , Jack is his _friend, but you still want to fuck him, don’t you, Victor_?

 

    “Some people--” Victor coughs, face red. “Some people must… I mean, there must be something to it, or people wouldn’t do it. Some people.”

 

    “Some people.” Wayne makes a face. “I’m not one of them! There are a lot of places I think it’s acceptable to tongue somebody--”

 

    “Like the morgue.” Victor says, doesn’t even react when Wayne kicks him under the table.

 

    “And that’s not one of them! Not even with a very adventurous woman. It’s not hygienic! Victor, I can’t believe you haven’t fainted at the thought yet, knowing how you feel about hygiene.”

 

    “I don’t faint when something’s less than hygienic--”

 

    “Oh, you almost did once--”

 

    “I just don’t think it’s very nice to write someone off as a sick joke or something for what they like to do in the bedroom.”

 

    “Spoken like a true dungeon master.”

 

    “Well I can’t listen to sexual hygiene lectures from a guy I know once made it on top of a dissection table!”

 

    “When you start getting guys breathing heavy down your phone line, Victor, you can tell me how to feel about it.”

 

    “I don’t want guys breathing heavy down my phone line.” He grumbles, hunching over his tray.

 

    _Just one guy_.

 

    “I don’t know why you’re the one in a foul mood when I’m the one getting hit on by strange men.”

 

    “Just lucky, I guess.” He stabs at his lunch. “Does anyone know if Jack Morrison made the cuts?”

 

    “Haven’t asked him. I heard White’s cut, though.”

 

    “There’s some good news!” Victor groans, apparently with enough feeling to get everyone staring at him. “We’re all thinking it, right?”

 

    “If you really think he’s guilty, sure.” Shirley shrugs.

 

    “Shirl, I _saw_ the man.” Wayne says, at the same time as Victor starts.

 

    “Guilty of more than just that!”

 

    “Yeah, well-- he did complete the rehab program.” Wayne frowns. “But you’re not wrong. Anyway, I guess if we don’t catch up with Jack before the big celebration, we’ll find out then.”

 

\---/-/---

 

    The celebration is set for Nino’s, though Jack’s not one of the first to arrive. Victor makes sure he has a seat where he can watch the door, and as the table fills up, he keeps an empty chair next to him in hopes that Jack is going to come join them.

 

    Jack walks in when he’s distracted from his vigil, but when Cathy greets him, Victor’s attention snaps right up to him. He waves for him to take the seat he’d saved, maybe a touch too eager considering the rest of the table’s full up anyway.

 

    “I guess you guys are stuck with me for another year.” He says, shuffling past the nearby tables to reach him.

 

    “Congratulations!” Victor smiles up at him, and it finally feels like he can really breathe. This is real, they both made it. No more Peter White, too, which helps. He feels the same awareness of Jack settling in next to him that he feels sometimes when he’s making dinner at Jack’s place, when he just knows he’s around and it makes things feel right. Everything feels so much more right with Jack nearby…

 

    Even as the conversation starts flowing again, it’s Jack beside him that has his focus, and there’s so much he wants to say that he thinks ought to wait, there’s so much that they haven’t been able to say to each other the past couple of days, and he can hardly focus on everyone else, but when the toasts start up, he guesses he can try his best.

 

    “Hey, to all my friends.” He holds his glass aloft-- doesn’t even really flinch when Wayne makes a crack, it’s something he thinks he’d bristle over from anyone else, but Wayne really doesn’t count. “No, really-- I know most of you have found it necessary to call me a pig this past year, so I hope each and every one of you spend a thousand hours in the OR with Doctor Craig.”

 

    It gets a laugh, but even as he says it, he’s aware Jack _hasn’t_ ever called him a pig. Well, Jack’s not likely to spend any hours in the OR, with or without Craig, but that’s not the point. The point is he guesses he hopes Jack knows he’s aware of it, he hopes he understands that what he really means is, he’d like to thank him for never dogpiling on, even when maybe he deserved it. He knows he’s said some awful things he hasn’t meant to, any more than Wayne can help making cracks when someone hands him a straight line. Jack might shake his head over something that crosses a line, but he never goes and calls Victor names over it. But Victor doesn’t know how to say ‘thank you for never making fun of me’, when just about everyone else has. It seems kind of a weird thing to say, and kind of a sad one…

 

    And the other toasts are fine. Are nice, or funny-- Jackie’s is funny. At least, Victor’s in the right mood to find it funny. He does pay attention, he’s not that self-absorbed. Or… Jack-absorbed, as to not pay attention to his friends. Still, he guesses he’s got to admit, he’s a little more interested in what Jack has to say.

 

    “Your turn, pal.”

 

    “St. Eligius. Boy, that is all we ever seem to talk about.” He says, and Victor just drinks him in. The gentle aura around him and the soft melancholy on his face, and how warm and soft his coat looks-- and how Victor wishes he’d shrug out of it so that he wouldn’t have to wonder if he was just going to duck out early on them, and the streaks of paler blond woven through his curls, and how his big hands wrap around his mug. The glint of the wedding ring he still wears, when he moves his hand just so.

 

    “I talk about Boston General sometimes.” Wayne jokes-- and it’s kind of nice to not be the only one he interrupts with a smart remark.

 

    Victor stays angled towards Jack anyway. Whatever he’s working his way towards, it seems important. There’s a weight to it. He wants to give it the focus it deserves. And… and Jack isn’t a handsome guy in the traditional sense, but he smiles, and suddenly there’s a light on him, suddenly he might as well be the best-looking guy in the room-- and he’s not, because Phil is, but he might as _well_ be, for how enraptured Victor finds himself.

 

    “Look, I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just saying it’s our common bond.” Jack laughs softly, too, and when it dies away, he’s all thoughtful again. He turns to look at the other end of the table, leaves Victor to study his profile. The slope of his nose, the shape of his chin.

 

    “Yeah.” He nods, voice barely above a whisper.

 

    “Just _one_ of our common bonds.” Jack corrects himself. Victor wonders what else they have, the two of them. The dinners… their propensity for singing along with the radio? “And we spend so much time at that hospital. It’s like the work becomes everything.”

 

    His eyes meet Victor’s, at that. Such a deep blue, and with something behind them he can’t quite figure out. He never can, but when it’s Jack, he likes trying. He likes looking. Jack’s gaze flickers down, after that brief moment, but he stays turned towards Victor, and maybe that doesn’t mean anything, he can’t go imagining it means something, but…

 

    _You want it to_.

 

    “I guess one of the dangers is, we start to neglect ourselves.” Jack continues, not quite looking into Victor’s eyes again when he does raise his head. “Try to save other people’s lives and we… we lose track of our own. Anyhow, that’s what I learned today.”

 

    He looks back to Victor-- away a moment, and then right back at him at that last, their eyes meeting as Jack laughs softly again, as Victor’s heart leaps right up into his throat.

 

    “The hard part is going to be… hanging on. To who we are, in our hearts.” He says, and Victor feels… he feels too much, of too many things. He could cry. He could listen to Jack talk about life forever. He nods, and this time the ‘yeah’ is barely even a whisper, but Jack looks at him again, keeps his eyes locked to Victor’s even as he raises his glass towards the center of the table. “To the memory of Wendy Armstrong.”

 

    They toast. After a speech like that, Jack falls silent, and everyone lets him. Every so often, though, Victor turns and catches his eye, and they sit silently together, sharing a look or a smile. Jack rests his arm on the table alongside Victor’s, and every so often one of them shifts and they touch.

 

    When the waiter comes by, Victor tells him to put Jack on his tab, before he can stop and think about it-- only realizes the extent of what he’s done when everyone stares at him.

 

    “Do you owe me for something?” Jack asks, smile warm, amusement dancing in his eyes.

 

    “I just-- I don’t know.” He blushes. He thinks about what Jack had said, about who they all are at heart, about the importance of having lives of their own. He thinks about White dragging Jack off, and Jack not expecting to be treated well by his own best friend. “You’ve just had a rough couple days, I thought. And I thought… I wanted…”

 

    “Hey, I’ve had a rough couple days.” Wayne laughs. “You wanna cover me?”

 

    “You’ve been fine. It’s-- it’s just a thing we were talking about earlier.” Or not talking about, but… he doesn’t know how to explain that, either. There’s no way to explain everything with Jack, even without the part where he’s in love with him.

 

    “I’ll get you next time.” Jack nudges Victor. “Thanks.”

 

    “You don’t have to get me. I mean… you’ve always got a kid to take care of and you still wind up running yourself ragged for everybody else. I don’t just mean work, but… friends, too, and-- Well, I don’t know. It’s someone else’s turn to take care of you. I guess.”

 

    “Victor…”

 

    “That’s very sweet of you.” Cathy says, touching his other arm. “You’re a very sensitive soul.”

 

    “Sensitive.” Wayne snorts. “You wouldn’t think that if you ate lunch with him!”

 

    “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call Victor ‘sensitive’.” Annie laughs. “A lot of things, but not ‘sensitive’.”

 

    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Victor offer to spend money on somebody.” Phil adds.

 

    “Sure, easy for you to say, you’ve never had student loans to pay off.”

 

    “I’m a cheap date.” Jack grins. Victor just coughs, nervous, and Jack keeps on grinning at him. “I won’t put much of a dent in your wallet.”

 

    “You don’t really have to worry about-- I mean I don’t mind--” _Don’t mind you coming here, wasting all my time time_ and now he’s thinking about Jack making him coffee and singing with him, and he’s thinking about his ass, and he’s thinking about how much he’d like to be Jack’s hero, just once, just at anything. “I mean… it’s not weird, is it? To want to do something for a friend sometimes?”

 

    “I don’t think so.” Jack says, his arm settling more firmly against Victor’s.

 

    “I don’t think so, either.” Cathy says, and then Jackie agrees, and then so do the others.

 

    Victor feels a little better, anyway.

 

    He and Jack leave together, at the end of the night, and though the mood had lifted through most of the night, Jack’s introspective again, his head hanging, his shoulders drooping.

 

    “What’s wrong?” Victor asks, following Jack towards his place rather than splitting off to get a train home.

 

    “Just… thinking about Wendy again. You know I got her spot?”

 

    “You can’t feel guilty about that.” He reaches out to squeeze Jack’s arm.

 

    “I can if I helped kill her. Victor… everything that happened to her, I-- I called her, after the mortality conference, when she lost that patient’s baby. She wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t even let me tell her I was sorry about what had happened. I thought I didn’t have to choose sides between my friends, but… what I did…”

 

    “Hey, hey-- no…”

 

    “Peter told me what happened between them was a misunderstanding, and I knew she was hurt, but I thought… I thought wrong. Trying to stand by both of them, all I did was make her feel like she couldn’t trust me. And Peter…” He shudders.

 

    “Jack…”

 

    “He did it, didn’t he?”

 

    They’re stopped dead on the sidewalk, and Jack turns to meet Victor’s gaze, and Victor doesn’t think he’s ever seen a man so haunted.

 

    “He did it.” Jack continues. “I thought something was wrong about-- about what he told me, after his trial. Because before, he said… he said Wendy misunderstood him and things got out of hand, but then… then after the trial he said she made it up, like I would… like I wouldn’t question that from him, even though Wayne saw, even though… But I didn’t question him, did I? I let it go, I went about my day, I spent time with him and everyone knew, everyone knew I still talked to Peter. Wendy knew. But I couldn’t-- He stayed in my _home_ , Victor, with my _wife_ , I didn’t want to believe it. And yesterday, hell… I went to tell him I’d been cut, and you should have heard him… the things he said, about women, about--”

 

    He cuts himself off, and Victor can only wonder over just who or what White had something awful to say about. Specific women?

 

    “Jack… he wasn’t always-- I’m sure he never did anything to upset Nina, or to hurt her. You would have picked up on it.”

 

    “Would I have? I’m not much for detective work. Do you know the worst part?”

 

    “It all sounds like worst parts.” Victor admits.

 

    “I’m afraid of letting him know that I know. I’m afraid of what he’ll do if he thinks there’s no reason to pretend. I’m afraid of what he’ll do, wherever he goes now that he’s not at St. Eligius. I fought so hard thinking I could bring the real Peter back, but maybe this is the real Peter. And I was always too blind to see it.”

 

    Victor surges forward, wrapping his arms around Jack and holding him tight.

 

    “None of this is your fault.” He whispers. “You only ever wanted to believe the best about people, don’t-- don’t… don’t lose yourself over this. You’re a good man, Jack. And I’m so glad you’re still at St. Eligius, I am.”

 

    “Thanks, Victor. For everything.” Jack hugs him right back, a long moment. Finally, he breaks away. “Going my way?”

 

    “No, I-- I’d better catch my train before it’s too late.” Victor shakes his head. Too many things would be too tempting tonight, if he let Jack take him home. He’d be thinking about his ass, he’d be thinking about kissing him, he’d be taking advantage of his vulnerable state.

 

    “Another time.” Jack nods, letting him go.

 

    “Another time.” He promises.

 

\---/-/---

 

    Victor has one very busy week, before he’s able to take his vacation, a week during which he barely seems to socialize. He’d thought his workload would drop dramatically after the boards, and yet there seems to be so much to do still…

 

    Tonight, though, he has dinner planned with Jack. Jack has most of the day off, and he wants to spend a part of it with Victor, and Victor’s got work still, but he’ll be off at a reasonable hour for dinner.

 

    Jack encourages Victor to talk about his day, and Victor begs to hear about Jack’s, all the places he’d taken Pete, how cute he’d been. They’re finishing up the dishes after putting Pete down for the night, when Jack hesitates, in the middle of saying he’d taken Pete over to Harvard, just to walk around between the buildings.

 

    “I, uh…” He fidgets, turning towards Victor. “Something kind of happened, actually.”

 

    “Oh?”

 

    “Yeah. Yeah, a girl gave me her number.”

 

    “A _college girl_?”

 

    “Grad student. And… I mean, it was, she seemed nice. It’s just… for a while now, I guess I’ve been putting my life on hold, thinking… well, someday I’ll be ready to date again. Holding myself back. Knowing I wanted something for my future and just not going after it. And I guess today I realized… I am ready. I want to be in a relationship, not a holding pattern.”

 

    “Oh.” Victor says. The bottom drops out of his world. He knew it would happen, but he’d hoped he might have more time. A girl… and Jack’s ready to move on. He’s going to date, and then she’ll come to his apartment and eat meals with him and take care of his kid and… and what can he do, except be happy for him? “I see.”

 

    “So… I mean-- what do you think?”

 

    “I’m sure she’s nice. I should-- I should go. Tomorrow’s a, uh… No, but I’m happy for you, you-- you deserve this, really. And if she’s, you know, if she’s right for you, then I’m sure that means she’s a really good person, but-- hey, you’re putting yourself out there, that’s great, that’s-- I’ve gotta go, I’d better go.”

 

    He moves towards the front door, Jack trailing behind him.

 

    “Victor, wait--” Jack’s hand closes around his wrist. Victor turns. “Victor, I didn’t take her number.”

 

    “You didn’t? I thought-- You said…”

 

    “ _You_. I’m ready to date _you_.” Jack takes a step closer, still holding Victor’s wrist, grip gentle. “We’ve been dancing around each other long enough, haven’t we? I like you, Victor. And… I don’t want somebody else.”

 

    Victor swallows, his free hand moving to Jack’s waist. “Me?”

 

    Jack nods. “If you’re ready.”

 

    “I’m-- the divorce is still… paperwork, and-- I mean, technically, I’m… But I don’t love her. I haven’t for a while. I do want this, you.”

 

    “I’d like to kiss you.”

 

    Victor leans in, with a little nod, and Jack leans in to meet him. Their lips meet, Jack sweet and gentle, and even that much strikes a match to the kerosene-soaked tinder inside of him. Victor slides his arm around Jack’s waist, buries his other hand in his curls, Jack still clinging to his wrist, to the front of his shirt as Victor dives in, traces over the shape of Jack’s mouth with his tongue.

 

    After a moment, Jack’s hand leaves Victor’s wrist in favor of grabbing onto his shoulder.

 

    He _melts_.

 

    _Acquiesces_.

 

    Victor moans into the kiss, turning them so that he can press Jack back against the wall, and Jack… Jack’s everything Victor ever could have dreamed, if he’d allowed himself to dream like this, about Jack trembling and moaning in his arms, wanting to press closer to him, wanting to be kissed…

 

    They’re interrupted by a loud wail, and they separate, sighing in unison.

 

    “Victor-- stay?” Jack gives his wrist one last squeeze. “I’ve got to-- but stay?”

 

    “Of course.” He nods. He drifts after Jack, watching him pick up Pete and coo to him.

 

    “This is what I guess you’ve got to ask yourself if you can put up with… We’re going to get interrupted a lot.”

 

    “That’s okay. I mean… I love kids. I get it, they come with interruptions, they come with mess. But I-- I’m not just interested in you for a quick tumble or anything. I want to be part of a family.”

 

    The smile Jack flashes him is brilliant. It cuts right to the heart of him.

 

    “I’ve got to go change him. But-- You’re staying the night?”

 

    “As long as you want me.”

 

    “I could want you for a pretty long time.”

 

    “Oh. Okay.” Victor grins.

 

    Jack takes Pete to change him, and Victor sits on the sofa. They’ll probably have a lot to talk about in the morning… a relationship, a real one… trying to be a family… and having to navigate not being able to talk about what they have with anyone! It’s a lot to discuss.

 

    He’s trying to figure out how to deal with the question of what’s new in his life, just in case, when Jack appears in the doorway.

 

    “Hey.” He smiles, stretching a hand out in Victor’s direction.

 

    “Hey.”

 

    “You coming?”

 

    “Wow, I hope so.” Victor scrambles to his feet, only hearing the words once they’re out of his mouth, and he winces at the sound of them. This is it, this is the moment he hears those dreaded words from Jack… He’d just thought he’d be sleeping on the couch, and then Jack had invited him back to bed, and he’d wanted so _much_ …

 

    “I’m a sure thing tonight.” Jack grins, slow and sweet.

 

    Victor reaches him, taking his hand. He lets Jack lead him back to bed.


End file.
